Meet Mr Udu Drum

Things to do this week

1. get a set together
2. Finish the song for Matt's radio show
3. play Trepid house
4. go to Sudbury
5. Play in Sudbury with the Captain opening
6. Find a damn duffel bag big enough for booty of musical instruments and clothes (might have to sacrifice bringing clothes for instruments, getting arrested for playing a naked show would make for good publicity, but its probably pretty cold up in Sudbury)
7. Stop writing run on sentences
8. Get ahold of Steve and see if he has my vibraslap
9. Eat more fruits and i love you most of all my favourite vegetables
10. Get good fake moustaches for me and Matt for the................ moustache party.
11. Find out who the hell put this up.

http://www.lyricsmania.com/lyrics/captain_wonderful_and_the_less_than_perfects_lyrics_20330/other_lyrics_51015/youre_special_lyrics_536987.html

booooooks

Went to Chapters today to pick up the Paul's boutique 33 1/3 I ordered not planning to spend any money and spent almost one hundred dollars. I've been addicted to books lately but everything I got was on the list of things I wanted to read anyways, so i guess it's not a bad thing. I picked up Ray Davies's "X-ray" his unauthorised biography of himself, "Electric don Quixote" another bio about Zappa, "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" an autobiography by one of the merry pranksters during the summer of love and "Gonzo" a Hunter S. Thompson Bio. I really like reading biographies about authors i find interesting before i dive into their work, especially authors that write autobiographical works, it seems to bring you deeper into the works. kinda like reading about an old friend.

My Favourites 08

2008 wasn't that remarkable of a year for me, half of the albums that i was looking forward to hearing didn't come to be this year (Clues, Starlight mints) and ones by bands i used to love just seemed to disappoint (Islands, Of Montreal) but here are the ones i did like in no particular order.

1. Tobacco - Fucked up Friends
Taking a more instrumental/hip hop approach to the same formula that made black moth super rainbows dandelion gum so awesome last year Tobaccos album wasn't a show stopper but is consistently good enough with a few great moments to probably be my favourite album this year.

2. Beck - Modern Guilt
While the risk taking, genre bending Beck of last decade may be gone the new beck sure knows how to set a mood over the course of an album. I think this is the first time Beck has taken a big stab at more 60's styled music, tho he dabbed in pscydellia before it is was a more post modern version. Song for song this isn't one of Becks best efforts but i give him points for always trying something different.

3. The Bicycles - Oh No, Its Love
Expanding on their debuts style the new album is more hit and miss but still a very good pop album. On some of the songs the bigger production values seem to strangle the songwriting a little bit, not enough to hate the songs but enough to slightly annoy you. In other places the album tends to go a more 70s route than the 60's styled pop the first album specialized in, but a lot of the more mediocre ideas only last 30 or 50 seconds and its on to something fun and funky again.

4. Man Man - Rabbit Habits
This record didn't win me over at first, but eventually a lot of the material really grew on me and it turned out to be one of my favourites of this year. The record has the instrumental prowess of 70's Zappa and mixes it with the strangeness of Primus and that's bound to turn more people off the band than on to them, but under it all the songs are strong and the instrumentation, i think is well chosen and played.

5. Unicorn Dream Attack - Love Bits
I just got this in the mail a couple weeks ago but its one of the most original pieces of music I've heard this year. Made mostly of game boy beats and old Casios it gives you that warm feeling of being 8 and playing video games. One thing they have on other 8bit or Chiptune music that put them ahead of the pack is the vocals, although vocoded are sweet and melodic as opposed to the sometimes harsh and abstract approches of other 8bit groups.

New 4th Floor Crest

Incorporating elements of the crest of Britain and the Bahamas, i think it turned out nice.

some covers i did with my toy keybords. Most of the instruments are done with my Kawai Ms50 I got at value village the other day. Gangsters has my Casio VL-1 Being distored with my big muff then vocoded. (Right Click Save as to save)

Devo - Girl U Want

The Specials - Gangsters

So today Allys dad brought his friends son over to take a look at my "setup" They came over at about 12:30 and i showed him around my instruments. He didn't seem to be very interested by anything, when i asked him his favourite music he just said he couldn't listen to any if he wanted to write music because it would come out the same as it went in. But after an aquard hour or so we left and went to food and the antique store in Galt.
At the store, which is more like a warehouse I ended up finding a good selection of records all for under $10. Really good considering antique stores usually mark everything up a ton. I got
T.Rex - The Slider
Devo - Freedom of Choice
Pink Floyd - Wish you were Here
Arlo Guthrie - Alice's Restaurant
Kraftwerk - Computer World
Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
The Beatles - Sgt Pepper
ELO - Time
ELO - A New World Record

all in almost spotless condition.

Tomorrow apparently I'm going to the ROM with Ally's family then maybe to Ikea whereupon i can finally get the shelf i want for my record player and records.

Thrift Bending

Just got back from my and Allys thrift store excursion. Found myself a children's toy i circuit bent to get some pretty weird sounds (ill upload a video later) a channel selector from an old stereo so i can switch between computer and protools sound easy, a portable radio with a mic input i wanted to turn into a portable amp but was broken, some speakers for my stereo, a couple Beastie boys VHS's and a old Kawai keyboard that looks cheep but has some soul, it sounds like a super Nintendo game. I also stopped at the surplus store and got myself some more bits and peices for circuit bending as I've been getting back into it lately. All in all i think it was a pretty good evening, time for pizza.

Black Moth Super Bakeing

Its always nice to come home to a nice hunk of scratch and sniff vinyl. My Black Moth Super Rainbow dippers Ep came in today and is playing in the background right now. Its great when a band has such a original sound that they cant help but sound like themselves.Now some people say Black Moth just sounds the same every record, but its the atmosphere that matters in this case and they never fail in that area. Speaking of that i probably should make a list of my favourite albums of 2008, Tobaccos album will be on it for sure.

Deansbury

Yesterday i mastered an album for a young man by the name of Dean Eagle who plays a good uke. He reminds me a lot of Colin Meloy if he played the Ukulele, apparently this was another SUF connection although since i have stopped posting on the forum he found me over face book via Dean (another dean) who runs the forum/ rack and ruin records and is an all around cool guy. I like working on other peoples music, trying to take it to the next level and its a nice feeling knowing that people suggest your name as who to go when they need that to happen.

On the 20th (hopefully) my excursion to Sudbury should happen leaving my bank account a little smaller but hopefully my esteem will be bigger recording some music with Matt and playing my first solo show in over a year.The next step is to work out an hours worth of material to play although the Satellite Farts did it and I'm sure i can cop most of the songs from those days and acoustify them as 70% of my CD is songs from that era anyways.

Speaking of my CD Its in its final stages with nothing (besides maybe a vocal) Left to record and just art and tracking left to do, in the next few months i hope it sees physical distribution and then i can send it around to see if any labels are interested in helping me along the way.